Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Baseball: Call Me Mr. Delirious

Unbelievable. The Red Sox are actually making me forget about politics for whole evenings at a time! If the Red sox beat the Yankees in the most improbable comeback in sports history and win the World Series, George Bush could resurrect Hitler to replace Cheney and I wouldn't care if he was re-elected.

Just an incredible game last night. something is up this year. Things are happening that never happen for the Red Sox or happen to the Yankees: Line drives ripped down the line foul in huge spots -- for the Yankees... Controversial home runs in Yankee Stadium for the Red Sox!... Ridiculous rulebook plays you'll ever see again, ruled against the Yankees at home... All night long in Game Six (that's right, Game Six) the little things that always happen for the Yankees were happening for the Red Sox. Maybe the guy running around the Stadium dressed as the ghost of Babe Ruth actually pissed somebody off -- I don't know, but something turned.

[Continued in the comments, because I start to really ramble -- click below to read the rest]

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The further proof of this comes here. Last week one of my best friends from New York called me up and announced he'd be coming to Michigan for a couple days for work. He's never been out here, and I haven't seen him in a year. What's wrong with that? Well, Brad is a Yankees fan. One of those Yankee fans you want to kill. Not because he's obnoxious (though he has been, throwing a friend's brother's O's cap down a storm drain after a game at the Stadium), not because he's fair-weather (though he's had his moments). It's because he's kind of a mix of over-confident, lackadaisical, entitled and spoiled fan with a casual disinterest for whole stretches at a time. The guy who doesn't go to a game all season (while living in NYC) yet lucks into ALCS and World series tickets. I know Brad loves the Yankees, I don't mean he's bad fan, but he's perhaps the most annoying kind of fan for a Red Sox fan to be best friend/roomate/etc with.

But that's not bad enough. Brad is like my own personal Ghost of Babe Ruth. There have been stretches over multiple seasons where just about any game I watched or attended with him, the Yankees won (no matter who they were playing) and the Red Sox lost (no matter who or where they where playing.). And God knows anytime they played each other, the Yankees always won. About 10-12 years ago at the Sox were poised (poised? they had literally won the game!) for the first ever win-despite-Brad, and a fan ran out on the field, negating the final out, and the Yankees came back to win.

So Brad's coming into town during the ALCS and I'm not sure I want to watch the games with him. The Sox are dead if I do. I don't want him flying in to be my special delivery Curse on my own couch. I certainly don't want to look across and see him enjoying a Yankee win.

Well, he came over for Game One. Ugh. We all know what happened. He then informs me on his way back East on Wednesday, that he'll need to come back the following week. Sunday through Wednesday. By the time Sunday night rolls around, do you think I want to watch the final sweep game with him? Yikes!

Well something happened. I don't know if the fact that his arrival forced us to watch the game slightly delayed on Tivo and he couldn't jinx the Sox in "live" time or what. But he was powerless. The next day, Brad got food poisoning at CrApplebee's, and he was too sick to come over. He was forced to watch Game 5 half from his hotel room toilet... his weakening was nearly complete.

Next came Game Six. This time we were watching it live. As the game unfolded, it became more and more clear to me that I was going to win. The Sox were going to win. That's not to say that this game wasn't scary as hell for me, too. But the dread wasn't there this time, if it was, it resided at the other end of the couch.

Watching this normally confident and presumptive Yankee fan squirm on the couch with his team slowly buckling before him was a beautiful moment. Waiting for the Red Sox collapse that never came, he was thoroughly demoralized by the time he gort in his car and drove away.

The pressure is now on the Yankees. New York City must be walking around with a giant collective lump in the throat or a brick in their pants. They're not used to this feeling and, frankly, neither am I.